2) Definitely follow Marly Bird’s Secret Number Three: when stitching the first row, stitch around the foundation chain instead of through it*. With all the tension changes you have to do throughout the piece, the last thing you need is the bottom edge bowed because the tension in later rows doesn’t match the first row (and it never did for me, no matter how many times I tried this).

This is what happens when you stitch into the chain for the first row. No amount of blocking will fix this.A close up of the first row with the stitches around the chain. You can slide them back and forth to match the tension later, giving you a flat, square piece.

3) Figure out the usual number of stitches (where “sc ch 1” = 1 “stitch”) you can get out of each color. (This is my adaptation of Marly Bird’s Secret Number Four.) This is easily discovered. Just crochet in granite/moss pattern. Don’t worry about making the color pooling work. Note down how many stitches you are getting for each color instead. Do four or five color repeats. Then, when you start your color pooling project for real, make sure your first row has the most common number of stitches for each color. Move to a different section of yarn if it doesn’t. This makes things go much more smoothly later.

4) Be less than perfect. While Marly Bird’s argyle patterns are crisp and inspire us to reach for perfection, I had to lighten up when it came to some sections of yarn. I found that the greatest variation in color length happened when two similar colors or two colors of similar value were adjacent to one another. My yarn (Red Heart Super Saver “Wildflower”) has a section of teal that changes to grass green. You almost can’t see the color change, which makes it hard to find the transition. Also, this section seemed to be the least consistent in color length. Sometimes I got 4 teal stitches, sometimes 3. And the grass green could be 2 or 3. What I found was that together, the teal and grass green usually came out to 6 stitches, no matter how the stitch number varied for each color. So I made that my goal and stopped worrying about where the teal turned green. This also happened with a light green to light blue section, so I did the same thing there. Because the values are so close, this compromise doesn’t affect the overall pattern very much.

If you look closely at the blue-green stripe running from upper left to lower right, you’ll see that in any one row, the number of grass green and teal green stitches vary. Keeping the total number of blue-green stitches the same is easier to do.

5) Be prepared to work slowly. There is lots of ripping back and stitching again. Once I got my yarn working for me (using the tips above), I was able to do more straight crocheting without changing hooks. But there are still plenty of places (usually the edges when I turn) that I wind up re-making the same stitches two or three times.

6) Be prepared to concentrate. This is not a project to make when you are sitting in meetings or lectures. Even after lots of practice, I find I can’t pay much attention to anything else while working on my project. The TV can be on, but it has to be mindless (sporting events or something I’m not really interested in). Educational TV is out; I miss most of what’s said.

*For those who didn’t watch the secrets video: when you turn to start the first row, stitch in the chain for the first granite/moss stitch. After that, it’s around the chain for the rest of the row.

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Kit Dunsmore is a writer and an artist who wants to live in a castle, own a fire-lizard, or at least get snowed in at the library. A Renaissance woman, she is curious about everything and uses writing as an excuse to learn about whatever she likes.

The only other time I get “patterns” with this sort of yarn is when I make socks. There are some amazing yarns that make everything from stripes to “fair isle” patterns (although they aren’t as crisp as the traditional sort). But now that I know how to do this particular technique? Never again! LOL